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Comment by saljam | Hacker News Reader

I got mine last week, and I've been using it as my main machine since then.

I put on a small Debian-based chroot and installed Guacamole[1]*, so I can use my favourite editor and X11 programs within a Chrome tab.

Compiling large C/C++ programs takes a while, but the Go compilers (what I mostly use) work really well. And I can always SSH into beefier machines (Linode/University) if I ever need to.

This replaced a Thinkpad which cost 5 times as much and broke in less than 13 months. So far I'm not missing the Thinkpad. (Well, maybe the 3 button TrackPoint)

[1] http://guac-dev.org

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Ugh. I read this and cry inside. Perfectly brilliant idea that I didn't even think of.

Why? I just purchased a new ultra book burdened by Windows 8 pre-installed. If I switch to the legacy BIOS the machine won't boot up, period. The only way to get the machine to work is through Windows 8. No installing Linux, no changing firmware, no nothing. Wonderful little box that's magnificently useless for systems level programming...

Why would you switch to legacy BIOS mode? Linux support UEFI just fine afaik.

Which ones? I've tried Ubuntu and Mint but not Fedora. I tried googling it but all I ended up with was a several pages of articles talking about UEFI and the secure boot without a single link TO a Linux that did it. I'm dying to know 'cause I can't stand another minute on Windows 8.

I haven't actually tried Arch on UEFI, but their wiki page seems fairly extensive on the topic. Ubuntu documentation also shows UEFI support, but their documentation is bit vague.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Extensible_Firm...

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UEFI_Bootloaders

Of course I wouldn't be terribly surprised if your UEFI has some bug that prevents Linux from booting.

What machine is this? Do you know if other models of new windows 8 ultrabooks & tablets are affected, or is it just that one?

What zokier said. Unless it's some form of this bug: http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/20187.html

Can you quantify the differences in compile speeds between Go and C++ on the device? In particular, I'm interested in using Go to replace some of my scripts.

I would hazard a guess at at least an order of magnitude, based on reading about go's approach. even more depending on the dependancies.

Where did you learn how to set up the chroot jail? Any tricks necessary?

I used Debian's Multistrap on another computer to make the chroot. I just copied it into it's own directory somewhere on /home and used it from there.

You'll need to enable dev-mode, and you'll probably need to remount the partition it's on without the noexec option. It's a pretty standard chroot from there on.

I can write up the process somewhere or share the filesystem if there's enough interest.

I haven't tried it myself, but http://technoticraccoon.com/post/27876540798/how-to-create-a... looks like it may be the way to go.

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